double bass max

ok, after taking the advice of the tb's i switched the bass max back to the e string side and shimmed it with a business card. it seems to have solved the responsiveness issues pretty well and the tone is better too, although i'm not completely satisfied with the fullness. (the bass itself has a very full sound. it's a kolstien 7/8 bass) i'm thinking of adding another bass max to the g string side and blending it with my raven labs blender. i'll report on the results.
also, there seems to be a slight distant ringing (typical with piezo pickups) with the bass max on my bass. can someone give me advice on how to eq this out?
thanks

not sure about the "ringing" but a good choice to shim the pickup would be an old sax reed; they tend to couple very well with the bridge/pickup, and getting the bass max to fit smoothly and snugly is the key to making it really "work" for you.

The "distant ringing" you hear might be the pickup reacting to the vibrations still going on in the bass after the string has been muted. I have to deal with this since my bass is so resonant...both a mic and my Bass Max will pick up those vibes for a few milliseconds. I had to learn to work in some creative right hand muting.

You don't mention which Raven Labs pre you're using, but if it's the PMB, the input impedence on the second (lower) channel isn't the same as the first. The result is, there may be a different frequency response for each pickup. It might work better if the 2 pickups are wired together into a mono jack run into channel one.
It would be easy to try both ways and see which works better. I see why you want to split the signal, so you have control over each pickup, but I've found 2 wired together into the PMB channel one sound pretty good.

The "distant ringing" you hear might be the pickup reacting to the vibrations still going on in the bass after the string has been muted. I have to deal with this since my bass is so resonant...both a mic and my Bass Max will pick up those vibes for a few milliseconds. I had to learn to work in some creative right hand muting.

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yes, i think the distant ringing may be from my resonant bass. i have a student level craptastic romanian bass that doesnt sound nearly as good at the kolstein acoustically, but it amplifies much better. i think the top is not even graduated, just a slab of wood, but i find myself taking that bass on more gigs because i dont have to worry about anything. just plug and play.

It is typically safer to wire them out of phase (switch the ground and hot on one of them) to avoid the potential for phase cancellation. If you first try them wired together in phase (hot to hot, ground to ground) and notice a loss of bass frequencies, that's a symptom of identical signals cancelling one another out. There is no dependable way to determine if this will happen, so I would suggest experimentation, because you may prefer the sound with both in phase if there is no problem with cancellation.

When I order various Double Bass Max systems from K&K as custom units, either a pair wired to a single mono or stereo jack, with or without preamps, they are supplied with one out of phase with the other, to play it safe.

not sure about the "ringing" but a good choice to shim the pickup would be an old sax reed; they tend to couple very well with the bridge/pickup, and getting the bass max to fit smoothly and snugly is the key to making it really "work" for you.

Click to expand...

I improved the sound in volume and responce with this advise, using an old Vandoren Alto Saxophone cane reed to bring the K&K Max to a perfect snug fit in the Bridge wing.

SASQUATCH - try muting the afterlength of the strings with a towel or some felt and see if the "ringing" still continues. When I used the Bass Max (and the "Double Bass Max"), this was most often the cause. Good luck!